The Dong Zhi Festival, also known as Winter Solstice Festival, occurs every year on December 21 or 22 celebrating the year’s turning point toward spring. This holiday’s main idea is to enjoy a good meal with family and friends. The festival is observed by the Chinese, Japanese, and Koreans during the winter solstice.

This year, Dong Zhi 冬至, is on Saturday, 22 December 2018

Dong Zhi 冬至 (Winter Solstice Festival) means the arrival of winter, is the season for thanksgiving of the Chinese calendar. Dong Zhi falls six week before Chinese New Year. Coinciding with the winter solstice, Dong Zhi is an important festival for Singaporean Chinese. Chinese families gather during Dong Zhi to pay homage for a good year, and celebrate it by eating tang yuan, a traditional food made out of rice flour stuffed with sesame seeds or red bean paste served along a clear soup made of sugar and water and seasoned with pandan leaves and ginger. It is also a time for them to be with their families and friends and to rekindle old friendships.

Traditionally, the Dong Zhi Festival is also a time for the family to get together. One activity that occurs during these get togethers (especially in the southern parts of China and in Chinese communities overseas) is the making and eating of tangyuan (湯圓) or balls of glutinous rice, which symbolize reunion. Tangyuan are made of glutinous rice flour and sometimes brightly coloured. Each family member receives at least one large tangyuan in addition to several small ones. The flour balls may be plain or stuffed. For good luck, families prefer to have some pink tang yuan to mix with the white ones as red represents good luck to the Chinese. They are cooked in a sweet soup or savoury broth with both the ball and the soup/broth served in one bowl. It is also often served with a mildly alcoholic unfiltered rice wine containing whole grains of glutinous rice (and often also Sweet Osmanthus flowers), called jiuniang.

Tang Yuan means “tuan yuan” (family reunion). Thus by eating Tang Yuan is a significance of family unity and family prosperity.

Many always ask and wonder what their lucky colours are for the coming Lunar New Year.

Chinese Lunar New Year in 2019 starts on Tuesday, February 5th 2019 and ends on January 24th, 2020. The year of the Pig 2019 comes right after the Year of the Dog (2018) and before the year of the Metal Rat (2020)!

The best colors to wear in 2019 are somewhat similar to the best colors for the last year, as both years share the same element — the Earth element.

However, while the previous year was a Yang energy year, 2019 is of a Yin energy quality.

This means that compared to the active and bold (Yang) energy of 2018 expressed in the energy of the Dog zodiac sign, the year of 2019 brings a more calm, soothing and quiet (Yin) energy.

As Earth element is nourished by the Fire element, the best colors to wear in 2019 are of the Fire element, and especially those colors that have a more Yin/relaxed quality to them. The colors of the Earth element are also considered good in 2019.